Therefore I'll give no more, but I'll undo Than gold in mines, where none doth draw it forth; Than a sun-dial in a grave. Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me 8744 FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOYEVSKY. DOSTOYEVSKY, FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH, a Russian novelist and journalist, was born at Moscow, November 11, 1822; died at St. Petersburg, February 9, 1881. His first novel, entitled "Poor Folk," issued in 1846, is a vivid and pathetic description of the life of the Russian poor. In 1849 he was arrested and condemned to death; but on the very scaffold a commutation reached him, and he was sent to Siberia for six years; arriving home four years later. He then recommenced, penniless, the life of an author writing for bread. The "Downtrodden and Oppressed" appeared within a year after his return. "Evil Hearts" was published in 1867; and "Crime and Punishment" the same year. His later works include, "The Idiot" (1869); "Podrostok" (1875); "The Brothers Karamazov" (1875); "Krotkaia" (1875); "The Underground Spirit" (1875); "An Author's Journal," a periodical which Dostoyevsky founded in 1876, and of which he was editor and publisher. THE BIBLE READING (From "Crime and Punishment.") RASKOLNIKOFF went straight to the water-side, where Sonia was living. The three-storied house was an old building, painted green. The young man had some difficulty in finding the dvornik, and got from him vague information about the quarters of the tailor Kapernasumoff. After having discovered in a corner of the yard the foot of a steep and gloomy staircase, he ascended to the second floor, and followed the gallery facing the courtyard. Whilst groping in the dark, and asking himself how Kapernasumoff's lodgings could be reached, a door opened close to him; he seized it mechanically. "Who is there?" asked a timid female voice. "It is I. I am coming to see you," replied Raskolnikoff, on entering a small anteroom. There on a wretched table stood a candle, fixed in a candlestick of twisted metal. "Is that you? Good heavens!" feebly replied Sonia, who seemed not to have strength enough to move from the spot. "Where do you live? Is it here?" And Raskolnikoff passed quickly into the room, trying not to look the girl in the face. A moment afterwards Sonia rejoined him with the candle, and remained stock still before him, a prey to an indescribable agitation. This unexpected visit had upset her- nay, even frightened her. All of a sudden her pale face colored up, and tears came into her eyes. She experienced extreme confusion, united with a certain gentle feeling. Raskolnikoff turned aside with a rapid movement and sat down on a chair, close to the table. In the twinkling of an eye he took stock of everything in the room. This room was large, with a very low ceiling, and was the only one let out by the Kapernasumoffs; in the wall, on the left-hand side, was a door giving access to theirs. On the opposite side, in the wall on the right, there was another door, which was always locked. That was another lodging, having another number. Sonia's room was more like an outhouse, of irregular rectangular shape, which gave it an uncommon character. The wall, with its three windows facing the canal, cut it obliquely, forming thus an extremely acute angle, in the back portion of which nothing could be seen, considering the feeble light of the candle. On the other hand, the other angle was an extremely obtuse one. This large room contained scarcely any furniture. In the right-hand corner was the bed; between the bed and the door, a chair; on the same side, facing the door of the next set, stood a deal table, covered with a blue cloth; close to the table were two rush chairs. Against the opposite wall, near the acute angle, was placed a small chest of drawers of unvarnished wood, which seemed out of place in this vacant spot. This was the whole of the furniture. The yellowish and worn paper had everywhere assumed a darkish color, probably the effect of the damp and coal smoke. Everything in the place denoted poverty. Even the bed had no curtains. Sonia silently considered the visitor, who examined her room so attentively and so unceremoniously. "a "Her lot is fixed," thought he," a watery grave, the madhouse, or a brutish existence!" This latter contingency was VOL. VII. - -29 especially repellent to him, but skeptic as he was, he could not help believing it a possibility. "Is it possible that such is really the case?" he asked himself. "Is it possible that this creature, who still retains a pure mind, should end by becoming deliberately mire-like? Has she not already become familiar with it, and if up to the present she has been able to bear with such a life, has it not been so because vice has already lost its hideousness in her eyes? Impossible again!" cried he, on his part, in the same way as Sonia had cried a moment ago. "No, that which up to the present has prevented her from throwing herself into the canal has been the fear of sin and its punishment. May she not be mad after all? Who says she is not so? Is she in full possession of all her faculties? Is it possible to speak as she does? Do people of sound judgment reason as she reasons? Can people anticipate future destruction with such tranquillity, turning a deaf ear to warnings and forebodings? Does she expect a miracle? It must be so. It must be so. And does not all this seem like signs of mental derangement?" To this idea he clung obstinately. Sonia mad! Such a prospect displeased him less than the other ones. Once more he examined the girl attentively. "And you - you often pray to God, Sonia?" he asked her. No answer. Standing by her side, he waited for a reply. "What could I be, what should I be without God?" cried she in a low-toned but energetic voice, and whilst casting on Raskolnikoff a rapid glance of her brilliant eyes, she gripped his hand. "Come, I was not mistaken!" he muttered to himself."And what does God do for you?" asked he, anxious to clear his doubts yet more. For a long time the girl remained silent, as if incapable of reply. Emotion made her bosom heave. "Stay, do not question me! You have no such right!" exclaimed she, all of a sudden, with looks of anger. "I expected as much!" was the man's thought. "God does everything for me!" murmured the girl rapidly, and her eyes sank. "At last I have the explanation!" he finished mentally, whilst eagerly looking at her. He experienced a new, strange, almost unhealthy feeling on watching this pale, thin, hard-featured face, these blue and soft eyes which could yet dart such lights and give utterance to such passion; in a word, this feeble frame, yet trembling with indig nation and anger, struck him as weird,- nay, almost fantastic. "Mad! she must be mad!" he muttered once more. A book was lying on the chest of drawers. Raskolnikoff had noticed it more than once whilst moving about the room. He took it and examined it. It was a Russian translation of the Gospels, a well-thumbed leather-bound book. "Where does that come from?" asked he of Sonia, from the other end of the room. The girl still held the same position, a pace or two from the table. "It was lent me," replied Sonia somewhat loth, without looking at Raskolnikoff. "Who lent it you?" "Elizabeth I asked her to!" "Elizabeth. How strange!" he thought. Everything with Sonia assumed to his mind an increasingly extraordinary aspect. He took the book to the light, and turned it over. mention made of Lazarus ?" asked he abruptly. "Where is Sonia, looking hard on the ground, preserved silence, whilst moving somewhat from the table. "Where is mention made of the resurrection of Lazarus ? Find me the passage, Sonia." The latter looked askance at her interlocutor. "That is not the place it is the Fourth Gospel," said she dryly, without moving from the spot. "Find me the passage and read it out!" he repeated, and sitting down again rested his elbow on the table, his head on his hand, and glancing sideways with gloomy look, prepared to listen. The Sonia at first hesitated to draw nearer to the table. singular wish uttered by Raskolnikoff scarcely seemed sincere. Nevertheless she took the book. "Have you ever read the passage?" she asked him, looking at him from out the corners of her eyes. Her voice was getting harder and harder. "Once upon a time. In my childhood. Read!" "Have you never heard it in church?" "I-I never go there. Do you go often yourself?" "No," stammered Sonia. Raskolnikoff smiled. "I understand, then, you won't go to-morrow to your father's funeral service?" 66 Oh, yes! I was at church last week. I was present at a requiem mass." "Whose was that?" |